A re-introduction

KRISTINA

Exactly one year ago, two friends tried to start a blog about motherhood.

And after several posts, into which they put their hearts and souls, the blog disappeared. Through no fault of their own. Whether it was a fluke of the internet, a mistake neither realized they made, or God saying “now is not the time,” the blog vanished and the friends gave up.

But then, one friend reminded the other friend of that blog they had attempted to begin… and we’re starting over.

I’m Kristina. I currently have two children. Asa is three; he’s full of humor and movement, and constantly surprises me with something new he’s learned. He’s my (mostly) even-keel child, more likely to laugh at something than cry about it. Evie is nearly two, and it’s very apparent in her emotional ups and downs. When she’s happy, she is very happy. When she’s angry, the world might end.

And just as their personalities are opposite, so were my pregnancies and post-pregnancy moments. I loved being pregnant with Asa. I had the glow, the energy, the zest. While I did have three days of prodromal labor with him, once things got rolling his birth was as serene as a birth can be, considering. Immediately after he was born, I thought “I could do that again.” I lost all of the weight quickly after birthing him, and he was a dream baby. While there was some stress, of course, it was very little in the grand scheme of things. He weaned himself, he was a great self-soother, he slept well.

I hated being pregnant with Evie. I was sick until nearly 20 weeks pregnant, I cried and yelled during labor, threw up, roared through pushing, and shook for an hour after she was born. It took a full year and a half for me to want to be pregnant or go through labor again, and even now I’m not sure I’m on board yet. I didn’t lose any baby weight after having her, and gained even more through a long and rough period of postpartum depression. She still doesn’t sleep through the night, and weaning was a long and rough struggle.

My experiences and children are like night and day to each other. Both imperfect, both beautiful, both painful and wonderful and sometimes insane. I cannot wait to share the things I observe through mothering these two, and, eventually, share what a third (and fourth, and fifth) experience will be like.

SARAH

I always knew I would be a mother. From when I was just a little girl stuffing baby dolls up my shirt and pretending to give birth, it was what I wanted more than anything. I grew up as the oldest of 7 children, and I helped in the daycare my mom ran successfully. I believed my life experience would make me a great mom.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, but motherhood swept under me and dragged me from solid ground out into unknown and chaotic waters, like riptide. My first born challenged everything I knew about children and about being a mother. Oliver. He was a difficult baby, with particular wants and needs, fretful sleep, and as he transitioned from infancy to toddlerhood I fell into a despair that I had massively messed up with him.

When Oliver was 19 months old, on a festive Christmas morning, I gave birth to our daughter.  Wynter. I grew into myself as a mother during her first few months. I decided what kind of mother I wanted to be, and made decisions that fit our family and our values instead of doing what I thought I was supposed to do. I wasn’t perfect, by any means, but I had a feel for what I found important and what mistakes I never wanted to make again. I endured a bout of post partum depression. I struggled with the challenges of toddlerhood. And then my world turned upside down again.

Oliver was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. A flood of therapies and doctor visits and new found knowledge and endless research overtook me. It was overwhelming, it was arduous. It was also a relief. Suddenly so much I had seen as my own failure fell into place and I saw a new way for us, for our family.  The challenges didn’t change, but I now knew that we had help.

Three years after Oliver’s diagnosis we added another little boy to our family. Everett. My pregnancy with him was difficult. I was more than ready for him to be born, and I was induced 1 week early due to fluctuating blood pressure. He burst into the world. He was the only one I actually had an epidural for, but the epidural was placed right before he was born rendering it effectively useless. As I held him on my chest I had no idea of the whirlwind that would come.

A choking episode at home delivered a first time 911 call and our bedroom flooded with 7 emergency responders. Another one that same night would send us back to the hospital where he was born to spend 4 hours in the ER and be sent home. A few days later we would be making our way to the ER at the local children’s hospital, and that would result in a 5 day hospital stay where we would discover significant feeding problems.  Two days after returning home we would see a feeding specialist who would find that Everett was born with a cleft of his soft palate. We would later find out that he also had a rare genetic condition called Pierre-Robin Sequence. We would also be going through multiple hearing tests that indicated that he was born deaf.  Then, eventually, after many struggles to help him gain weight, we would trek back to the children’s hospital for a g-tube placement. Everett’s journey through his first year and a half of life has been interesting, to say the least. So much more has happened, but I will save it for another post.

Today, we are thriving as a family. Motherhood is nothing like I had imagined, but I wouldn’t change the journey or the reality for anything. Oliver turns 7 years old this month, Wynter is 5 years old, and Everett is 18 months old. In the past 7 years I have learned so much. I cannot wait to learn more and grow more as a mother, and share the ups and downs of this journey with you.

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